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Saturday, May 4, 2013

Chemicals under the microscope

Chemical
compounds under the microscope have fascinating colors and forms. On my blog I
posted a small selection of microscope photos of different chemical compounds.
All of them are water soluble chemicals (salts) that were easy to handle and
prepare. I think it is a nice collection that show the variety of forms and
colors chemicals can have under the microscope. They can have incredible
colors, especially salts with rare earth elements as cation. Some of the
compounds are common substances which can be found in daily life like table
salt or magnesium sulfate. Others are very exotic only used for chemical
analyses or strange applications like gadolinium nitrate that’s used as soluble neutron poison in nuclear reactors.

Erbium nitrate

Holmium nitrate

Preparation
was done on a microscope slide with water, propanol or methanol and with few
sample material (less than 0.5 gr). The solution was dropped on the slide and
dried in a heatcabinet until the fluid were vaporized; a difficult process because some of
the salts are very hygroscopic (they become fluid by air moisture).All of the photographs are made with a
polarization microscope which allows observing samples in normal visible and in
polarized light. The light is blocked by a polarizer and orientated at 90
degrees to the illumination. This simple technique produces very colorful images
by interference of the light waves. Few ones are made in dark field microscopy
that shows margins of mineral grains in a higher contrast.

The
posts that are linked below have no scientific importance they are made only
for aestheticpurposes. I have examinedneither the light refractionnorbirefringence; both are important values for analytical
purposes, but not necessary for photography.

Enjoy
the collection; these are some of the structures that keep the world together. I
will enlarge it in the future if I have time.